Most days, Ashley Good pulls double-duty as a waitress and a dishwasher at Martin’s Restaurant, a mainstay diner in the center of North Abington that plans to stay open for Labor Day.

“We only have a dishwasher on weekends,” said Good, as she plunged up to her elbows in the sudsy sink and scrubbed the pots on a recent Wednesday in August.

One of more than 8.2 million Americans who now work in the food-service industry, according to federal labor statistics, Good said she enjoys her job and getting to know all the regulars at Martin’s.

The 40 to 60 hours a week that she works at the North Avenue restaurant happens in a town that once moved to the beat of a very different industry.

“All around here used to be shoe factories,” said Jason Villa, the cook at Martin’s and the third generation of a family that owns the breakfast-and-lunch diner.

The shoe industry is long vanished from Abington, much like shipbuilding in Quincy. Now, 120 years after President Grover Cleveland signed a bill designating the first Monday in September as Labor Day, America’s working class can be found behind cash registers in retail stores, at office jobs or in hospitals and homes caring for the elderly and people with degenerative diseases.

“The days when my grandfather could get a job at the shipyard and make a good middle-class living, that’s gone,” said Kevin Madden, the director of the South Shore Career Center in Quincy.

Retail and service-industry jobs have taken the place of those well-paid factory jobs from 50 years ago, added Madden.

“You find more and more people cobbling together multiple minimum-wage jobs,” he said.

Unlike the full-time factory jobs worked by earlier generations, today’s workers often have no benefits, said William Ewell, a political science professor at Stonehill College in Easton who researches economic inequality.

“Since the 1980s, there’s been wage stagnation for 60 to 80 percent of the population,” said Elwell. “And increasing numbers of people are living in poverty. Upwards of 50 percent of Americans at some point slip into a state of poverty.”

Back in Abington, hairstylist Odette Miller said her customers often talk to her about the stresses of economic survival.

“Everyone who’s working is working hard and extremely long hours just to keep their jobs even,” said Miller, who owns the White Door Hair Salon and works many 12-hour days herself.

Anxiety over job security dominates the thoughts of many of today’s workers, said Randy Albelda, who teaches economics at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

“The recession also has intensified the notion of how unstable many people are. They may love their jobs, but they can’t pay all their bills,” said Albelda. “Most people don’t have enough money saved to support themselves for six months.”

Page 2 of 2 - One economist refers to this group of people as the “precariat,” or a precarious proletariat, Albelda added.

But in Rockland, Beth Currie is feeling a little more secure because she’s mastered the computer nerve center that controls six embroidery machines churning away in the back rooms at Rockland Athletic Supplies.

“I don’t think I’ll be out of a job until someone else can figure out all that,” she said, smiling and pointing over to a digital keypad.

The screenprinting and embroidery business employs 36 people year-round, and the busy season of late summer and fall demands working some nights and weekends, said Currie.

At Walmart in Quincy, Jameel Thigpen was taking a break outside from his job in the electronics department and said: “I wouldn’t have been here for four years if I didn’t like it.”

Walmart is the country’s largest private employer with 1.3 million people on its payroll in the U.S.

“I look forward to coming in to work,” said Thigpen, a Dorchester resident. “A lot of people don’t have jobs.”

Chris Burrell may be reached at cburrell@ledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @Burrell_Ledger.